A/N

So this chapter is likely going to be different from what you might be expecting. If it reads like a second draft, that's on purpose. It's all about the mood.

Originally, this and the (new and forthcoming) chapter 12 were going to be one chapter, all in Van's POV. But that second part has been very, very hard to get through. It's coming along, though. I'll post it asap. Hopefully by the end of September. But this fits so well as its own chapter that I just had to upload it. It's been ready for a while.

Don't worry, the reunion chapters will be 14 and 15. They're coming. I promise. Plus, I have bonus stuff I'm working on too.

Thanks for the support. You have no idea how much comments help. Seriously.

Standard Disclaimer: I don't own Escaflowne

Chapter 11: Green and Gold

"Lord Va-ann," he heard her call, her voice unchanged, exuberant and childlike. "I'm over here!"

Standing in light that was neither moonlight nor daylight, Van turned to see Merle as he remembered her, waving at him from their old meeting place atop the ballroom roof. He scrambled after her, and when he landed down on the roof, she jumped into his arms, embracing him and kissing him on the cheek in her usual manner.

Except this time, something seemed different.

Merle leaned back to gaze at him, her bright blue eyes now meeting his closer to eye-level. "I've missed you," she said, her voice almost purring. In the moment of their embrace, her body had grown not just taller, but fuller. And now she pressed herself against him.

An unexpected heat of attraction rushed through him. "Hi, Merle. I've missed you too," he heard himself say to her.

Chuckling, she leaned towards him. "You haven't missed me, Lord Van," she said, kissing him on the cheek. With her nose tickling his ear, she said, "You've taken a lover."

Van pulled away, breaking contact with her, his stomach tightening. Instinctively, he knew it was wrong to hold her like that.

She giggled, no longer that voluptuous woman but his young friend again in the yellow dress he'd given her.

Confused, he looked around. The great tree filled the sky above, glittering as if wet with rain, but he couldn't hear its leaves, couldn't feel any breeze, couldn't smell a recent rain. And below, instead of the lights of the city, he saw only the red glowing embers of a dying fire.

What was wrong here?

Squeezing his fist in frustration, something cut into his closed hand. He opened his palm to find a pink, opalescent button carved from a shell.

He knew what this was.

It was his good luck charm. Someone had given this to him, but he usually kept it in his pocket.

Who had given this to him?

Van's head throbbed.

What was he forgetting?

"Oh, what's that?" Merle asked, reaching to grab the pretty button.

Van snatched his hand away. "This was a gift. You can't have it."

Merle stood blinking at him innocently, her image shifting between the girl from his memories and this other woman he'd never met. "Do you love her?"

"Love who?" Van asked.

"The woman who gave you that charm?"

Rotating the button, faint etchings of a flower caught the light. He recognized it as a simple image of the Freidian Starbloom.

Merle hummed. "One petal for each child," she said.

"Huh?" Van asked. "What do you mean?"

Merle had become that strange woman again, and now she slunk to him, sliding her hands up his arms in an oddly familiar gesture. While it might have been intended to comfort him, it had the opposite effect of amplifying his nauseating discomfort. "Do you remember how you wanted to marry me?" she murmured in his ear, her fingernails digging painfully into his bicep.

He shook his head, jerking away from her, "No. I knew I couldn't marry you." The heat from earlier had been completely consumed by the swelling knot in his belly, and pain radiated sharply from where her nails had dug into him.

She gripped his wrist. "You told me you loved me."

"I did, but I was a boy," Van said, twisting out of her grip and bending over. His stomach heaved, but he wasn't sick.

They were on the east wing rooftop now, and as Van caught his breath, the gardens below wavered green in all their wild glory. Squinting, he stood straight, scanning the paths for something.

Or was it someone?

"Look, the moon is rising."

Van turned to see who spoke, but there was no moon in the sky, only a strange fountain on a wall, its spout like a sea serpent. Water burbled sporadically, spilling directly from the open mouth onto the roof tiles, down into the garden, to where it eventually flowed—snaking and sparkling—into the Asturian Sea beyond the distant cliffs of Fanelia.

Merle's voice pulled him away from the mesmerizing water. "What is she doing here?" she asked sharply.

Van looked to where she was pointing. A woman was walking through the garden, her dress a silvery green in the strange light. Her hair fell in golden waves down her back.

He recognized this.

Standing in his study, a long, narrow room that overlooked the gardens, the twisting sickness eased as he watched this other woman. She moved through his garden paths and stepped onto a little bridge.

This was familiar.

This was home.

The bookshelves and windows and warm wood walls surrounded him, and to Van, it was as comforting as a heavy cloak covering his shoulders. Almost, he could smell the dusty leather tomes on the wall behind him. Almost, he could hear the water trickling below. Almost, he could feel the breeze blow in from below. On his left sat his cluttered desk, his familiar quill waiting in its place for him to take it up again. Over closer to the door was the little table where he took most of his meals.

Yes, this was his favorite room.

He could watch her quite comfortably from in here. Maybe today would be the day she would look up and catch him.

Taking a step back, he bumped into Merle.

"So that's who replaced me?" she said, grabbing his left arm again.

"No one can replace you, Merle." Van said calmly. "I still think of you."

"But you married her," she whined.

"Did I?" he asked.

A bright paper on his desk caught his eye, and he looked down to see an official looking certificate, the words indecipherable except for the elaborately scrolled letters V and H.

That's right. He was married.

He looked out at the woman in the garden and then back down at the button in his palm.

Her name came to him then. "Hitomi gave this to me," he said.

Merle cried out wordlessly, gripping his left arm with more force. "How could you do this to me, Lord Van? How could you marry a Freidian?"

Returning his attention to Hitomi, he watched as she dropped something into the rushing water and let it float away to bob between rocks and rills. For a moment, it distracted him from the pain Merle was causing.

"Stop it, Merle," he said, trying to shrug out of her cat-like grip. In response, Merle only dug her fingers harder into his skin until his arm ached with a sharp, radiating throb.

With a cry of pain and surprise, he yanked away, her nails slicing his skin as he escaped her grasp. Blood gushed down his arm, and Van looked horrified between the vibrant dripping liquid and the girl before him. He could feel it bleeding fast, enveloping his hand.

Merle gasped. "I'm sorry!" she cried, throwing her arms around his waist.

His left arm burned with pain, and he cradled it to himself. With all the strength he could muster, he pulled away from her and trudged towards the door across the room. The blood began covering the floor, creating mud where there had been wood floors before. His steps became sticky, heavy, awkward, but he made it gradually to the door.

Maybe he could find that woman in the garden.

As soon as he had wished for it, he found himself surrounded by tall garden hedges, but this wasn't his home.

"Van?"

He spun to the voice.

"You're back," Hitomi said, stepping out of his washroom in Pallas, lamp in hand. Her hair caught the light in golden waves, her entire body glistened.

Body and tongue frozen in place, he was left gaping as she stepped closer.

"My gods, Van, what happened to your arm?" she said, lifting his left hand with shimmery, porcelain fingers.

"Merle scratched me," he said accusingly, watching her flawless face as she examined his arm. How was she not getting blood all over herself? It was getting everywhere else. He could taste it on his lips.

She shook her head as she looked up at him with eyes full of concern. "Merle didn't do this, you know that right?" she said.

A flicker of something told him she was right, that he couldn't blame this on his old friend. "Yes," he answered, feeling relief relax his body. "But I don't know what happened."

"It's okay," his wife cooed, her warm hand on his cheek. "You'll be okay, Van." She tugged his hand. "Now, come to bed, my love," she said.

In a blink, he was reclining and she was straddling him on his red Fanelian bed, her skirts gathering and bunching around her knees. The room around them was dark and cluttered, and he could almost smell the cedar wood panels on the walls around the room. Hitomi leaned close to him, caressing his hair and face.

"Van, you need to hold still," she said as she began pressing warm kisses across his face. "Will you hold still for me?"

"Yes," he said, enjoying her weight upon his body.

"Good," she breathed out before sitting up and fiddling with the braids in her hair. When she pulled her little sewing kit out, her hair fell loose around her shoulders again.

Now Hitomi sat cross-legged on the bed, her blue robe hinting at her breasts beneath the silk. She wasn't leaning over him anymore, but his body still felt her weight upon him. He watched her.

"I'm going to mend your arm," she said as she prepared a thread and needle. "Do you have the button I gave you?"

"Yes," he said, opening his right hand to show it to her.

"Oh, it's got six holes now," she said, taking it from him. "One for each child," she said with a coy smile.

"Why did you say that?" he asked.

But she was already at work, bent over his bleeding arm. He felt the initial sharp prick and tug of her needle followed by the endless, stinging drag of thread being pulled through his skin. Van grunted with pain.

"I'm sorry this hurts," his wife said, pausing to kiss his forehead. "Do you mind if I sew this to your arm?" she asked, holding up the button.

"That's a good idea," he agreed. "That way I can't lose it."

With a warm smile of agreement, she proceeded to sew the button onto the side of his upper arm. It didn't take long. Her fingers were deft, her touch gentle. The thread pulling through his skin was the worst part. He grit his teeth to bear it.

He must've blacked out. The next thing he knew, she was no longer stitching his arm but was naked and atop him, and he was naked, too. Hitomi was bending to kiss him sensuously on the mouth. "Do you think of me, my Lord Dragon?" she murmured in his ear.

"Every day," he said, lifting his right arm to stroke her hair.

She smiled in appreciation and kissed him again. "Good," she said, as her lips moved from his mouth and across his jaw. "Because I think of you, too."

Van jerked in surprise when she began licking his neck and shoulder.

But it didn't tickle or even stir him as it had at other times. Instead, her tongue felt cool and very wet. He watched detachedly as she licked all down his shoulder and left arm, and when she was finished, she stood, lifted his hand, and pressed kisses all the way back up again. His arm where she'd sewn the button felt strangely warm and snug, as if she'd wrapped her hands around it and kept them there.

"My Lord Dragon," she said, bending to kiss him tenderly, stroking his hair. "It's time to wake up," she whispered in his ear.

His heart sped up. "No," he said plaintively. He gripped her arms, hoping she understood. He didn't want to leave. He wanted to stay here with her. He wanted to be in his study and his old bed.

But she merely giggled, and it was almost like Merle's giggle from earlier. Then he turned and saw that Merle– the young girl he knew and loved as a boy– had indeed joined them and was bouncing on her feet at his bedside.

A cold prickle of anxiety slithered over his skin as he realized his childhood best friend had discovered him and his wife, naked.

But she didn't notice. She jumped up and hugged him as she used to do, though her voice was commanding. "Lord Van, you must wake up now," she said.

"No!" he cried again.

"Fanelia, you must wake up now," said the figure who looked like his wife.

But Van knew it wasn't her voice.

It was Dryden's.

A/N Anyone have theories as to what's going on?